


Sparkling Shower

by AndromedaPrime



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Birthday Party, Cultural Differences, Fluff, M/M, Mech Preg (Transformers), Transformer Sparklings, past mechpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24122758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaPrime/pseuds/AndromedaPrime
Summary: Hot Rod gets confused on what a baby shower is and deduces that the bots on the Ark should throw one for Optimus and his sparkling, Andromeda. Shenanigans ensue.Bit of a follow-up to a previous fic, "Unto Starlight."
Relationships: past Megatron/Optimus Prime
Comments: 18
Kudos: 81





	Sparkling Shower

**Author's Note:**

> *knocks back a bottle of sangria*
> 
> Second semester of grad school is done, I'm in total isolation and working from home, and I haven't hugged/talked to anyone face-to-face in two months. The world is a much more uncertain/scarier place than it was when I last posted a fic. So, I'm trying to find more time to read and write, and here I offer something a bit more fluffy.
> 
> This is one of the more self-indulgent things I've written. I suppose this can also be considered a late "Mother's Day" fic because Optimus is the carrier, after all.

“So, the humans have things called baby showers.”

Bumblebee looked up at Hot Rod, staring at the seemingly excited mech. He blinked his optics, and then slowly said, “Can you run that by me again?”

“I said, the humans have baby showers.”

“What the frag is a baby shower?”

“It’s a party they have for their own sparklings, to celebrate them! I told you because,” Hot Rod trailed off and gestured across the communication room, and Bumblebee followed his friend’s gesture to look at Optimus in his captain’s chair, intently reading a datapad while he let his daughter sit on his lap. Andromeda chirped, trying to get his attention by slapping a servo on the screen of the datapad, and sated herself with the digits he dangled in front of her to let him have a moment of peace.

Bumblebee made a noise of uncertainty. “So you’re saying, we should throw a… sparkling shower?”

Hot Rod nodded and the spoiler bits of his armor twitched. 

“Hot Rod, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Don’t you remember that time when we all threw a surprise party for Optimus at Maccadam’s?”

“What, when he… oh. Right.” A pensive look came over Hot Rod’s face. “Well, he hated it because he was the center of attention. Here, he won’t be. It’ll be Andromeda. She’s almost a stellar cycle!”

Suddenly, there was a very loud clattering noise on the bridge, and everyone turned around to see that Andromeda had wrested the datapad from her carrier’s grip and tossed it on the floor, chirping triumphantly and looking expectantly at Optimus with bright optics, her little wings fluttering. Optimus paused, then sighed and kissed her helm before getting up and picking up the datapad. She warbled in contentment and closed her optics, snuggling into his broad chassis.

“Well… okay, maybe.” Bumblebee turned his helm away, prompting Hot Rod to do the same so there were less optics on Optimus. “Have you told anyone else?”

Hot Rod shook his helm. “Nope. Just you so far.”

“Okay. If we want to actually do this whole thing, we need to learn more about it. How did you even-”

“I was just cruising along and grabbing this thing,” the mech produced what the humans called a “plushie” from his subspace, a fat and green little dinosaur that Bumblebee had seen variously in the humans’ pop culture, “when I heard some humans talking about them. And, since Andromeda’s almost a stellar cycle old-”

“Okay, okay,” Bee raised his servos and made a motion with them, palms facing Hot Rod, that meant to get the speedster to quiet down. “Primus, the weird things you pick up from the humans.”

.-.-.

“Hey, Optimus!”

Optimus gently extracted his digits from his daughter’s mouth and sighed, turning to face Hot Rod. Andromeda chirped happily and reached out for Hot Rod, wiggling in Optimus’s grip.

“Whoa, hey, someone’s very happy to see me!” Hod Rod leaned down and smacked his lipplates on Andromeda’s helm crest, making her squeak happily. “Wanted to give you this.” He reached into his subspace, and pulled out-

“Hot Rod, what is that?” Optimus asked curiously, arching an optic ridge. 

“It’s a dinosaur that the humans have in their video games! I thought Andromeda would love it.”

Clearly the sparkling did, as she was happily grabbing onto the green plush toy with her servos and rubbing her face on it. 

Optimus cursed his expressive faceplate, as Hot Rod immediately laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I got it legally.”

“That’s _precisely_ what someone would say if they got something through illegal means,” he replied dryly.

“Ah come on, you know me better than that.” Hot Rod batted his optics at him and Optimus sighed. “Someone saw me eyeing it and offered to get it for me if I took pictures with them.”

“Pictures?”

“...fine, I dabbed for their internet channel.”

Andromeda chirped and held the plush close to her chassis, looking up at Hot Rod with adoration in her bright blue optics. Hot Rod smiled at her and leaned down, planting another kiss on her helm crest. “Glad to see you like it, bitty. I hope you come across that video one day and recognize the _sacrifice_ I made for you.”

Optimus held back a laugh.

.-.-.

“C’mon you guys, Optimus does so much for us already!” 

“But are you sure he’d want a… what’s that you called it, a sparkling shower?” Grimlock asked the question that was on everyone else’s processor. He looked back at Arcee and Wheeljack in particular, and Bumblebee could tell that they were communicating privately via three-way comm link. “Didn’t he run out of Maccadam’s that one time-”

“Yes, he did!” Hot Rod near-shouted as he ran into the room from the hallway, leaning over and placing his servos on his knees to steady himself before he pulled himself to his full height. “But he’s not the one being at the center of attention this time. Not like that time.”

Arcee cocked her helm to the side. “But, he’ll be holding onto her. Even if he’s not the center of attention, it’s going to feel like it.”

“Yeah,” Wheeljack agreed, one of his optic ridges raised and completely ignoring the impatiently squirming, half-fixed drone in his servos. “And then we’ll have a repeat of the incident.”

“Maybe we will, maybe we won’t,” Bumblebee said in exasperation. “The point is that we should do this for Optimus, show him how much we appreciate him and everything he’s done for us, by showing how much we all love Andromeda.”

“So,” Hot Rod asked, bouncing up and down a little bit on his pedes, “are you guys in?”

The three bots looked amongst each other again, and for one horrifying klik, Bumblebee thought that they wouldn’t be in on it, and more importantly, that they wouldn’t keep this a secret. Then, Arcee nodded. “We’re in.”

Grimlock postured himself. “I’ll send out a private memo to the others on the Ark. This is a secret, am I correct?”

“Yup!” Hot Rod replied before Bumblebee could.

“Perfect! I’ll stress the importance of keeping this a secret.”

.-.-.

His daughter warbled happily as she held onto the plush toy, patting it down and poking the large eyes, and Optimus was at the very least thankful that she had something new to distract herself with. She studied the toy so intently, pausing and looking at the visible stitching and staring into the eyes as if expecting it to come to life and blink at her. Hopefully his datapads would be safe from her antics.

He checked his message exchange with Ratchet again, confirming that the medic had said that it was perfectly fine to enter the medical bay before him, and then did so. Walking over to the nearest berth, Optimus settled his daughter on his lap. She looked up at him curiously, warbling soft and happy little warbles.

“You’re almost a full stellar cycle. That’s rather exciting, isn’t it? It seems a lifetime ago that your spark was orbiting mine, waiting for descent.”

Andromeda blinked her optics at him and then went back to playing with her stuffed toy.

His daughter chirped happily, grasping the plush on the shoulder area and waving it around. Optimus smiled and kissed her helm, stroking his digits along her helm crest. She chirped indignantly as she looked back up at him and narrowed her optics, setting her face into an irked expression that felt _vaguely_ familiar. Her little wings lifted up and one flicked. How _dare_ he interrupt her play session?

Optimus chuckled and tickled her side, where there was still a bit of exposed protoform. Her indignant face turned into a wide smile and she laughed shrilly, her wings fluttering. 

“Oh, she’s sassy,” he heard another voice say. Optimus looked up and smiled at Ratchet, watching the medic get closer. “I saw that look she gave you. Probably send even Megatron running, huh?”

“Indeed. I know she got that look from him.” 

“Yeah, you can be scary, but not that scary.” Ratchet leaned down and looked at the bitlet, sticking his own glossa out at her when she did so. “Who’s a sassy lil’ bit?”

_Chirp!_

“Are you gonna be a good little bit while I do an exam on you?”

One of Andromeda’s wings flicked and she tilted her helm at him.

“Can’t believe she’s a stellar cycle.”

“Almost,” Optimus corrected.

“Yeah, true, almost. If we’re going by Earth time, it’ll be in,” Ratchet pulled up the files he kept on the sparkling’s growth and furrowed his optic ridges, “one more day.”

Optimus smiled forlornly and watched as his daughter resumed playing with the dinosaur, patting down the small red and white saddle on the back and grasping the little feet as she made the toy kick. “She would be older. Much older, if only…”

“I know,” Ratchet said after a moment’s quiet. “If only we hadn’t gone into stasis.”

“Yes.” Optimus stroked a digit down Andromeda’s helm, cooing gently at her as she looked up at him again and offered him the toy. He took it into his free servo and looked at the plush in its wide eyes. “I know there’s nothing to be done anymore. But I still wonder what she would be like, if she’d never gone into stasis with us.”

It was a unique situation for him to be in, this he knew. He simply sighed and then continued, “I can only hope that she does not hold it against me, once she is old enough to understand.”

“I don’t think she will. Might make Megatron-like expressions, but she’s your bitlet too, and I think she’ll understand why.”

Optimus smiled wanly. Ratchet crouched down so he was more level with the sparkling, and Optimus shifted how she sat on his lap, watching his friend test out the sparkling’s reflexes and run a scanning wand over her.

“She’s meeting all the developmental marks for a bit that’s almost a stellar cycle. She’s got better dexterity than expected, actually,” Ratchet said with an air of satisfaction, laughing as Andromeda tried to grab onto the wand, warbling in anticipation as she got that much closer. “Also, she’s quite chunky. Good job growing her.”

Andromeda chirped happily and tossed her servos into the air. She was very interested in the scanning device and kept reaching for it. 

“Andromeda,” Optimus chastised her lightly, giving her back the plush. She warbled and hugged it close, burying her faceplate into it. “Settle down and let Ratchet finish his examination.”

_Chirp!_

Ratchet chuckled and held a servo out to the femme, watching her as she inspected it, and then took two of his digits into one of her tiny servos that she unwound from the plush toy. “Temperature’s normal, and I’m not noticing any irregularities in her internals.”

Optimus looked questioningly at his friend. “How are you-”

The medic slipped his two digits out of Andromeda’s grip and waggled them once, twice. “Temperature and pressure sensors in these digits. It’s a non-intrusive way of getting readings on a bot, but mostly helpful for tiny bits like her.”

“So… all those times that you’d insisted on putting wires and needles into my protoform-”

“I could have done this, sure, but where’s the fun in that?”

If Optimus had no self-control, he would have thrown the plush dinosaur at Ratchet. Instead, he gave his friend a look of disapproval. 

Andromeda chirped, catching his attention, as she reached for the scanning device again. She batted at it insistently with her digits. Ratchet turned it out so the little screen faced her. “See all those numbers, bit?”

_Warble?_

“That’s your sparkpulse right there, and that other number’s the record of your internal pressure. See that bottom number? Gotta make sure it doesn’t go too high, or else you’ll start shaking.”

_Chirp!_

“There, there’s a good little bit,” the medic laughed.

The sparkling warbled at him again and then buried her face in the toy again.

.-.-.

“Uh,” Windblade couldn’t hold herself back as she crossed her arms over her chassis. “Bee, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Bumblebee’s doorwings fluttered and he nodded enthusiastically. “It’s gonna be great, Windblade!” 

Windblade watched warily as Bumblebee clung to supports on the wall with one servo - and both of his pedes - while he tried to properly hang the banner above the entrance to the designated party room. The glossy pink text on it read “Welcome baby girl!” 

“Andromeda’s not a baby girl,” Windblade said, a little flatly. “Whatever those are for humans.”

In response, Hot Rod pulled a giant marker out of his subspace and crossed out the offending words, writing “sparkling” over it.

“Optimus is gonna run,” Windblade replied, “just like at Maccadam’s that one time-”

“He’s not gonna be the center of attention! It’s gonna be Andromeda!”

“Sure, but who’s going to be holding her? Him. If he’s not giving a speech about the war efforts or trying to boost morale, you know he gets… awkward.”

“Ah, he’ll get over it.”

At that moment, Bumblebee’s grip slipped and he yelped as he fell the short distance to the ground. He groaned and Windblade ran over to him.

“Bee? Are you okay?”

The scout moved his helm so he peered at Windblade with one of his optics, and she saw his faceplates shift into a smile. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

A loud popping noise echoed in the hangar, startling everyone who was busy decorating the place. Hot Rod had the remnants of a large green balloon on his face. He huffed and picked the tattered pieces off from his optics. “Bee, I need another balloon.”

“I have some!” came a loud, excited voice as Wheeljack rushed in and tossed a small box up at Hot Rod, who yelped as he had to let go of one of the supports to catch the container. “Bee, Hot Rod, I was thinking - how about setting up a firework display?”

“Do you really think a stellar-cycle old sparkling will enjoy all that light and color?” Bee asked as Windblade set him down and he got to his pedes. “I mean, if we put it outside, maybe-”

“Oh no! I was thinking inside.”

Hot Rod threw a balloon at Wheeljack. “Are you going to rebuild the Ark from scratch if it blows up?”

Windblade audibly reset her vocalizer. “You three aren’t thinking of something very important. Fireworks are pretty loud. It’ll attract even more attention from the humans, and it’ll probably scare her too.”

“Fine, point taken,” Wheeljack sighed. “I suppose I _should_ work on making that bigger berth that I’d promised for her.”

Grimlock waltzed in and handed Windblade a balloon on a string. “That would be ideal, and practical. Gifts should be something that can be useful, not something that could reduce a sparkling to tears.

“Oh really?” Wheeljack gruffed, raising an optic ridge. “So what are you giving her?”

The larger mech whipped a large crystal out of his subspace that caught the light and cast multiple colors around the hangar, giving it the appearance of a shower of rainbows. The other bots that had been roped into the party-decorating all crowded around Grimlock and gasped over the large size and beauty of the crystal.

Except Wheeljack. He scoffed. “That’s not practical.”

.-.-.

“Andromeda.”

The sparkling made a noise and threw an arm over her optics. It was the same displeased noise and dramatic gesture that Megatron made when one tried to wake him before he wanted to be up.

Optimus smiled to himself and shook his helm. “You’ve slept far more than you should have,” he said, hoisting the little femme in his arms. She chirred a little groggily and yawned, stretching her arms. He hated to think how late she would be up after this, in turn keeping _him_ up and making him get less recharge than he already was. “Come. The sun is starting to get low.”

Andromeda chirped and snuggled into his chassis, and he was about to step out of her little room when she suddenly began whining and trying to climb up over his shoulder strut. Optimus held onto her and turned around, facing her berth. “What is it?” he asked.

 _Chirp!_ She pointed at the plush dinosaur that Hot Rod had given her, on its head and leaning up against the crib rail.

Optimus stared at it and, after a moment, sighed and picked it up. Andromeda snatched it out of his grip and held it close to her chassis, snuggling up to him. Her electromagnetic field pulsed _happy-safe-warm_ at him.

He ventured out of his quarters and to the top level of the Ark, stepping outside. The sky was streaks of orange, purple, and pink. In the distance, the tree tops swayed with the light breeze. He turned on his proximity scanner, and could only detect a few native animals around the area. 

Andromeda warbled in curiosity and pointed up at a bright light that flew over them. Optimus panicked slightly before realizing that it was only an Earth telecommunications satellite. 

“It’s not a shooting star, little one.”

“Buh?”

“We may get lucky again and see another tonight, but I can make no promises,” Optimus said, smiling and placing Andromeda on his lap so she sat up. In her own lap, she held onto the plush.

As the sky got darker, motley of vibrant colors darkening into blue, Andromeda chirped whenever a new star popped out of the dark sky. She raised a tiny servo and pointed at a pulsating star that Optimus could see even without magnification, was pulsing red.

“That star is what the humans call Betelgeuse. It is expected that the light of its supernova may reach us soon.” He stroked digits over her helm. “We passed by this star when it was beginning to shed its outer shell. One of the moons belonging to one of its planets had a cache of energon that didn’t seem to be claimed by anyone. Perhaps it may have been a few shards left by an expedition from long ago,” he mused, “and over time the amount of energon had multiplied.”

Andromeda chirred and looked up at him with wide blue optics.

“I was still in the midst of my carriage. That particular extraction was the very last one I allowed myself to go on before your birth. Ratchet threatened to weld me to a berth if I kept exerting myself and putting you in danger of a premature emergence.”

_Chirp!_

“Yes, yes. Ratchet says many things that are empty threats, but I have a feeling he would have followed through on the welding to a berth.”

More stars continued to pop out and shine. Andromeda pointed at another one.

“That one is Sirius. It is a binary system, two stars locked in a dance with one another. We had jumped through a bridge, getting much closer to Earth, and were actually passing through this system when I went into emergence.” He smiled fondly, remembering laying in berth with his newspark daughter lying on his chassis and staring out at the bright stars making up the system. 

Andromeda raised her plush, making sure that it was also looking up at the stars.

“You’ve seen so much of the universe,” he said, watching and seeing more stars popping out, peppering the sky. “It’s a shame that you won’t have any memory of what you’ve seen, little one. Perhaps… perhaps one solar cycle, when you are older and the war has been resolved, I can take you to the stars again and help you see things that you will remember.”

The sparkling looked up at him and blinked her bright optics, offering the plush to him. He gently grabbed it and held it for a moment, before handing it back to her. 

When he next looked at his chronometer, he saw that it was around time for him to get back inside. The stars were out and the sky was as dark as it would get for the night. He picked the warbling sparkling up and cradled her close, giving the stars another look before reentering the Ark.

Now that he actually noticed it, the hallways were incredibly empty. Normally he would see Bumblebee and Windblade chasing each other down, Arcee updating the database hub in the hallway with pictures of Earth life, or Rack’n’Ruin carting their last round of storage cubes to the bottom levels of the Ark.

“Hmm.”

Then, as if an answer from Primus, the console closest to him lit up and Teletraan-X’s cheery voice spoke. “Hello, Optimus Prime! May I be of assistance?”

Andromeda chirped and Optimus quieted her down. “Where is everyone, Teletraan?”

“Ooh! Yes, you may want to report to Hangar Seven. Hot Rod mentioned something.”

“What did he mention?”

There was an air of mischief in Teletraan’s voice as he said in a rather sing-song tone, “You’ll see!”

Optimus didn’t like that answer, but he decided he would go find out. He headed for the hangars, walking down the corridor and seeing a familiar face peep out from around the corner. It was Hot Rod - the mech giddly raced into full-view. “Optimus! You might want to come over here,” Hot Rod said, bouncing up and down on his pedes and waving him over to the hangar entrance. 

“Hot Rod, what is going on?”

“You’ll see!”

Tired of the non-answers, Optimus gave an irritated sigh and walked forward with more force in his steps than necessary. “Hot Rod, I don’t appreciate the runarounds I am getting from Teletraan-X and yourself. What is going on?”

“Follow me in!” Hot Rod said cheerily, running into the dark entrance of the hangar.

Optimus paused, then stepped in. “Wha-”

Suddenly, there was a cacophony of noise, and the lights in the room all went on. Optimus immediately jumped to a defensive stance, turning his frame away and holding Andromeda close. The little femme chirped in confusion, clutching her toy fiercely.

Everyone else on the ship was gathered in the hangar. There was a bright cacophony of colors everywhere, and decorations and banners of different types and textures, and what Optimus remembered were called “balloons”. 

Everyone threw their arms in the air and shouted at the top of their vocalizers, “SURPRISE!”

Optimus’s internal alarm went off, and he widened his optics as he stared at the entire room. Oh how he wanted to run away. He heard a loud _snap_ that he realized a moment later was his facemask sliding shut. 

Oh no. He could clearly see himself running out of the hangar, much in the same way he’d done at Maccadam’s when they celebrated his promotion to Junior Archivist.

Andromeda warbled and wiggled in his arms, reaching for everyone and bouncing happily. Her wings fluttered wildly, smacking Optimus right on his facemask.

Windblade leaped forward and grabbed Andromeda out of his arms, laughing. “Don’t hit your carrier like that. Primus, your wings are going to be a lethal weapon.”

Andromeda patted a servo on Windblade’s face, giggling. She looked at her plush toy, then at her carrier, holding it out to him. Optimus took it, and watched Windblade take off with his daughter.

“Here you go,” Bumblebee piped up from his side, holding out a cube of energon. “You look like you need this after that surprise.”

Optimus took the cube into a servo and brought it to his lipplates, but then remembered that his mask was still on, and retracted it. After downing it, he reset his vocalizer. From across the room he saw Windblade hand the sparkling off to Ratchet, who laughed at her and said something about her having gotten bigger since last seeing her earlier in the solar cycle. “How did this… happen?”

Bumblebee smiled and downed his own cube of energon. “Hot Rod found out about it, told me, we told everyone else, and everyone else pretty much all agreed we should do this to celebrate Andromeda turning a stellar cycle.”

Wheeljack now had Andromeda in his servos, as she chirped insistently at him and pointed at his facial insignia. She always seemed to be so entertained by the sight. He laughed at her and made nonsensical noises at her - either that, or they may have been extremely scientific words that Optimus didn’t know himself.

“So, what do you call this?”

“A sparkling shower! The human equivalent is a baby shower.”

Optimus nodded in acknowledgement, and kept a sharp optic on everyone that his daughter came into contact with. Most of them seemed to have some sort of small gift to give her, which they showed off in order to get her reaction, before they passed it along to a round, empty table in a corner that was piling high with said gifts.

Hot Rod popped into his point of view when Prowl had the tiny sparkling on his shoulder struts and he was showing her a datapad and stylus. She was very interested in whatever it was he was showing her on the datapad. Hot Rod plucked her off of Prowl’s shoulder, laid a big kiss on her helm crest, and then perched her back on before he raced over to Optimus.

“Hey, Optimus! Enjoying yourself?” he asked very brightly, broad smile on his faceplates. “For something we threw together in a few cycles, I think it came out pretty well!”

“Hot Rod,” Optimus asked quietly after a few kliks, as he watched Rack’n’Ruin stick their glossas out at Andromeda, who stuck hers out at them and then giggled as they patted her helm and then passed her off to Grimlock, who cooed at her and held her as if she were a delicate being of glass. Arcee came up to his side and wiggled her digits at Andromeda, laughing as the femme grabbed onto them. He glanced down at the tiny toy plush in his servo. “Why did you think to have this?”

A pensive look crossed the younger mech’s faceplates. “Hmm,” he said after a few moments of thought. “Well… you spent your entire carrying cycle having to shoulder us all through the war. You didn’t really have anyone to help you out, and you… well, you came back to work after just a solar cycle of being with her.” Hot Rod smiled at him, his blue optics bright. “We thought the both of you could use this gesture of appreciation since she’s almost a stellar cycle old.”

Andromeda squealed very loudly and both Optimus and Hot Rod snapped to attention, watching as Bumblebee - who had apparently peeled himself away from the group without him noticing - now held her aloft and pretended to help her fly around the hangar. She giggled and shrieked in joy, her wings twitching happily as she waved at all the bots she passed by. They all waved at her and Bumblebee laughed. “Like that?”

_Chirp!_

“Just wait until you can start flying! Oh, that’s gonna be fun.”

Optimus took another cube that Hot Rod offered him. “I’m very appreciative,” he said, smiling into the energon. “Thank you. Although, I will say that I believe that the proper term for this is actually a birthday party, for the humans. So, for us, it would be something like a sparkday party.”

Hot Rod was quiet for a bit. Then asked, “So then what’s a baby shower?”

“From what I’m aware of what I’ve learned of human cultures through their worldwide information network,” Optimus sighed, rifling through the bits of content he could remember, “it is a celebration of impending human sparklings before the sparkling arrives, normally for the offering of gifts intended for the family to use. As in,” he said gently and faintly amused, pulling the now empty cube of energon away him, “the carrier has not yet gone into emergence.”

Andromeda chirped at Wheeljack, who had apparently tasked his drones with bringing in what seemed to be a prototype of her future berth. It was significantly bigger, still with low railings on all four sides, but one of the longer sides was collapsible in preparation for her to be able to safely get out of berth and walk on her own.

“Well,” Hot Rod said after a klik of what felt to be embarrassed silence, “we didn’t throw that for you either.”

Suddenly, Andromeda began whining loudly. It seemed that the novelty of being around everyone else had tired her out and she wanted to be back with her carrier, as she was now squirming in Wheeljack’s arms and reaching for Optimus. Optimus smiled and nodded at Hot Rod, then crossed the distance between him and the sparkling, taking her into his arms and cooing at her to calm her down.

“It’s alright, my sweetspark,” he said, stroking her helm. “I’m here.”

She chirped and yawned, cuddling her plush toy and intensely trying to burrow herself into her carrier’s chassis. Optimus moved his servo from her helm to her backplates, tapping her spinal strut as he looked at everyone chatting among themselves, then to the table of gifts that had been given to his tiny daughter. 

Here they were, a planet still unknown to them all, far away from their home, and still they’d gone to this trouble to show him appreciation and to celebrate the tiny sparkling that had been added to their ranks. The thought of it warmed his spark, and…

Oh Primus. He blinked away whatever droplets of fluid threatened to fall from his optics. He had to continue to exhibit that image of leadership as best as he could.

Andromeda chirped quietly from his arms, batting a servo in his direction for his attention.

Well. As best as he could, with a sparkling in his arms. 

.-.-.

“Gotta say,” Windblade said later as she, Bumblebee, and Hot Rod carted the various mounds of gifts in their arms and followed Optimus back to his quarters, “I’m proud that you didn’t run away like that one time at-”

“I almost did,” Optimus interrupted, reaching the entrance to his quarters and typing in his code. “But, I’m also quite proud that I didn’t escape.” He looked down at the tuckered out sparkling draped over his shoulder strut, her wings twitching as she dreamed. 

As they placed their armloads of gifts on the designated corner of the main room, Optimus checked his chronometer, and smiled to himself. The party had gone on longer than intended and stretched into the following day.

He went and placed the sparkling back in her tiny berth, tucking the plush under one of her arms and watching her curl around the toy and warble in her recharge.

_Happy sparkday, my little one._

**Author's Note:**

> Don't go outside if you can at all help it, social distance, wash your hands, and wear a mask y'all.


End file.
